Abridged from his outstanding three-volume, National Book Award–winning study of Andrew Jackson, Robert Remini's one-volume biography of the seventh president of the United States distills the essence of his life and career. As president, from 1829 to 1837, Jackson was a significant force in the nation's expansion, the growth of presidential power, and the transition from republicanism to democracy. Jackson remains a highly controversial figure, and is still undergoing historical reconsideration today, and Remini portrays him as a forceful, sometimes tragic, hero—a man whose strength and flaws were larger than life, and whose conviction provided the nation with one of its most colorful and influential administrations.

"Superb professional history that moves boldly beyond the scholar's monograph to make the American past alive and exciting for the general reader."—Arthur Schlesinger Jr.